Sarajevo Film Festival reveals guest list for 20th edition

The Sarajevo Film Festival (Aug 15-23) has unveiled the guest list for its 20th edition.

Mexican actor Gael García Bernal will be the first guest to meet this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival audience, stepping in front of 3,000 cinemagoers at the Open Air Cinema before a screening of Alejandro González Inárritu’s Amores Perros.

Bernal will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo on the opening night, as will designer and director Agnes B. who will screen her feature debut Je M’appelle Hmmm…

That same night, directors Cristi Puiu, Vladimir Perišić, Aida Begić, Marc Recha, Angela Schanelec and Isild Le Besco will present their short films, compiled as the omnibus feature Bridges of Sarajevo.

The festival will host three Oscar winners. Director Michel Hazanavicius, winner of an Academy Award for The Artist, will visit Sarajevo with his Cannes film The Search, accompanied by his wife and award-winning actress Bérénice Bejo.

Bosnian-Herzegovinian director Danis Tanović, who won an Oscar with No Man’s Land, will be in attendance to receive the third Honorary Heart of Sarajevo of the festival.

Melissa Leo will meet participants of this year’s Talents Sarajevo and greet the audience after the screening of David O Russell’s The Fighter, in which she plays the mother – a role for which she won an Oscar.

Bosnian-Herzegovinian director Jasmila Žbanić, winner of the Golden Bear for her film Grbavica, will present a film as part of the official selection at the Sarajevo Film Festival for the first time. Love Island will see the director accompanied by actors Ariane Labed, Ermin Bravo, Leon Lučev and Ada Condeescu.

Chinese director Yi’nan Diao, who won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale with Black Coal, Thin Ice, will present the film at Sarajevo with lead actress Lun Mei Gwei.

Mr Turner will receive its first festival screening since Cannes, where the lead actor Timothy Spall received the Best Actor prize, and director Mike Leigh will be in Sarajevo to present the film.

This year’s Tribute to… programme will be a retrospective of films by the director Michael Winterbottom. During his stay in Sarajevo, Winterbottom will hold a career interview and speak with the audience after screenings of his films chosen for this programme.

Director Béla Tarr will head the jury for this year’s feature film competition and will be in attendance throughout the festival.

Simon McBurney, who stars in Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight, and director Paweł Pawlikovski, who will visit Sarajevo with his multi-award winning film Ida, are among the other international guests presenting their work at this year’s festival.

Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó, who presided over the main jury at the 18th Sarajevo Film Festival, will return to present his Cannes award-winner White God.

After the screening of documentary My Craft, the Sarajevo Film Festival will pay tribute to Arsen Dedić, one of the most productive film composers from the region.